Modern and Contemporary Art

Literature

ABE Publishing Ltd., Yayoi Kusama: Prints 1979-2017, Tokyo, 2017 (different edition illustrated, plate no. 300, p. 175).

Note

The pumpkin is the signature motif of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929). Not unlike Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can, the Pumpkin is Kusama's elevation of an everyday object, but unlike Warhol's signature post-war motif, a manufactured everyday item, Kusama's pumpkin is not a product of a factory, it is the bare fruit which nourishes, and is subject to the passing of time. Kusama's Pumpkin can be seen as a contemporary momento mori.

Kusama's fascination with pumpkins became evident in 1946 when she exhibited it in a traveling exposition in Matsumoto, Japan. This first piece was painted in the traditional Nihonga style which was developed in Japan around the 19th Century. Since then the pumpkin has become synonymous with the artist.

Kusama's work is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; among numerous others. A dedicated museum for the artist, The Yayoi Kusama Museum, opened in 2017 in Tokyo. Kusama lives and works in Tokyo.